The clarion., 1887-03-16
Food Frauds.
THE SHAMEFUL USE OF LIME AND ALUM
IN CHEAP BAKING POWDERS.

THE SHAMEFUL USE OF LIME AND ALUM
IN CHEAP BAKING POWDERS.
Many food frauds, such as chicory eof-
fee or watered milk, although thev are
a swindle in a commercial sense. are
often tolerated because they do not par
ticularly affect the health of the CON
sumer; but when an article like baking
powder, that enters largely into the food
of every family, and is relied upon for
the healthful preparation of almost every
meal, Is so made as to carry highly iniu
rious, if not rankly poisonous, elements
into the bread to the imminent danger
OF the entire community, it is the duty
of the press to denounce the practice in
the mos emphatic terms.
Among recent important discoveries
by tie food anal ysists is that by Prof
Mott, the U. :. Government Chemist. of
large amounts of lime and alum In the
cheap baking powders. These are, one
the most dangerous, and the other
the most useless adulterations vet found
IN the low-grade, inferior baking DOW
ders. Ii is = startling fact that of over
one hundred different brands of baking |
powders 50 far analyzed, composing all |
those sold in this vicinity, not one of |
them, with the single exception Of the |
Royal Baking Powder, was found free
from both lime and alum. The chief |
service of lime is to add weight. 1t is |
true that lime, when subjected to heat,
gives Oft a certain amount of carbonic |
acid gas, but a quick lime is left-a
caustic so powerful that it is used by
atnners to eat the hair from hides of an.
lmals, and in dissecCing rooms to more
quickly rot the flesh from the bones of
dead subjects. A small quantity of dry
hme upon the tongue, or in the eve,
produces painful effects; how much
more serious must these effects be on the
delicate membranes of the stomach, in
testines and kidneys, more particularly
OF infants and children, and especially
when the lime is taken into the system
day after day, and with almost every
meal. This is said by physicians to be
one of the chief causes of Indigestion.
dyspepsia, and those painful diseases of
the kidneys now so prevalent. Instances
of the most serious affections of the lat
ter organs from drinking the lime water
found in some sections of the West are
noted in every medical journal.
Adulteration with lime is quite as
has heretofore received the most en-
phatic condemnation from every food
analyst, physician and chemist, for the
reason that, while alum is probably par
Iially dissolved and passed off in gas by
-he heat of baking, it is impossible to
destroy or change the nature of the
ime in any degree, so that the entire
amount in the baking powder passes,
with all its injurious properties, into
,he stomach When we state that the
chemists have found twelve per cent. or
of the entire weight of some
samples of baking powder analyzed, to
be lime, the wickedness of the adultera-
ion will be fully apparent
Pure baking powders are one of the
chief aids to the cook in preparing per
,ect and wholetome food. While those
are to be obtained of well-established
reputation, like the Royal, of whose
purity there has never been and cannot
De question, it is proper to avoid all
lthars